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Dec 31, 2009 at 12:01 AMDec 31, 2009 at 2:07 PM

• THE FUTURE of Ohio's Third Frontier project got a big boost last week when Bill Harris, the state Senate president, voiced his support for a May ballot issue to extend funding for the successful high-tech economic-development initiative. The Republican leader had expressed doubts about the need to approach voters with a bond issue early next year. In truth, establishing a reliable funding stream to continue the project is crucial to the state's economy. With Harris' expression of leadership, the stage is set for a strong bipartisan campaign to win renewal of the project, due to expire in 2012.

• THE FUTURE of Ohio's Third Frontier project got a big boost last week when Bill Harris, the state Senate president, voiced his support for a May ballot issue to extend funding for the successful high-tech economic-development initiative. The Republican leader had expressed doubts about the need to approach voters with a bond issue early next year. In truth, establishing a reliable funding stream to continue the project is crucial to the state's economy. With Harris' expression of leadership, the stage is set for a strong bipartisan campaign to win renewal of the project, due to expire in 2012.

In the Ohio House, majority Democrats are solidly behind a May ballot issue. So is Gov. Ted Strickland, a fellow Democrat. The major obstacle was in the Republican-led Senate.

Many in the party caucus apparently were willing to place in jeopardy a program started in 2002 by Republicans, led by Bob Taft, all to deny Strickland fodder for his re-election campaign.

Harris is correct that voters must be prepared to make the right decision. Some funding sources behind the Third Frontier (among them, general revenues) no longer can be counted on to support the project. Eric Fingerhut, the chairman of the Third Frontier Commission and the chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, recently told commission members that a $1 billion bond issue would result in modest increases in annual spending.

Still, the size of the voter-approved borrowing would double.

Harris rightly argued that the $1 billion figure can be justified. A recent analysis by the Ohio Business Roundtable provides plenty of ammunition, following a similar report to the commission by SRI International, a California consulting firm. The Roundtable report estimates as of June 30, $473 million in state funding has attracted more than $3 billion in additional dollars. The business group estimates that the Third Frontier will have paid for itself by 2014.

The state legislature faces a Feb. 3 deadline to place a constitutional amendment for additional Third Frontier borrowing on the May 4 ballot. Delay would threaten the program, as the November ballot next year will be crowded with highly partisan statewide races, and a ballot issue in 2011 will create uncertainties for universities, venture capitalists and businesses.

Remember, the project won voter approval in 2005 after a struggle, passing on its second attempt. Now there is plenty of credit to be taken, on both sides of the aisle, to advance further the Third Frontier.

-- Akron Beacon Journal

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